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Another problem is that columnists have become multi-media stars. Papers now overpay them and figure they have to save the money somewhere, so the beat guy who no doubt breaks way more news than the columnist makes far less. I bring this up only because sometimes we see a big-name pro athlete defer money in order to bring more talent into the fold. What's the chance of a columnist doing that? Even pro athletes look out for one another better than we do. And yet we rip those guys all the time.
 
Okay, let's say you have three finalists for a job. All three are equally able to do the job, but for whatever reason (experience, salary history, whatever), one person won't do the job for a penny under $40,000, and the other two will do it for $25,000. What reason, other than fighting the system, would you have for giving it to the person who wants $40,000 (or giving $40,000 to one of the other two)? I mean, I'm feeling y'all on the **** salaries (I fell under the $1K for one year mark on my birthday in May), but unilaterially giving out more money just for the hell of it isn't going to happen in this industry or any other.
 
Mystery Meat said:
Okay, let's say you have three finalists for a job. All three are equally able to do the job, but for whatever reason (experience, salary history, whatever), one person won't do the job for a penny under $40,000, and the other two will do it for $25,000. What reason, other than fighting the system, would you have for giving it to the person who wants $40,000 (or giving $40,000 to one of the other two)? I mean, I'm feeling y'all on the **** salaries (I fell under the $1K for one year mark on my birthday in May), but unilaterially giving out more money just for the hell of it isn't going to happen in this industry or any other.

Nice example of management-speak. But it doesn't justify paying somebody that type of salary. ::)

And that's exactly why, as Gold said, if you're waiting for it to come from the top ... keep waiting.

The pressure has to come from the bottom. There is no choice but for it to come from the bottom. And in case it's not clear -- we're on the bottom. Yes, even the sports editors. Don't buy into this **** that being an SE makes you part of "management." All it means is you have a title and you get no OT pay. Plus, you have to sit in on managers' meetings. But you get your name on the S1 flag. ... You're as expendable as anyone else, and you can get lowballed like anyone else.

The pressure has to come from us. It won't come from the people who *decide* the salaries or balance the books. It has to come from us. If we want it to change, it has to come from us.
 
Mystery Meat said:
Okay, let's say you have three finalists for a job. All three are equally able to do the job, but for whatever reason (experience, salary history, whatever), one person won't do the job for a penny under $40,000, and the other two will do it for $25,000. What reason, other than fighting the system, would you have for giving it to the person who wants $40,000 (or giving $40,000 to one of the other two)? I mean, I'm feeling y'all on the **** salaries (I fell under the $1K for one year mark on my birthday in May), but unilaterially giving out more money just for the hell of it isn't going to happen in this industry or any other.

Look at the words you wrote "giving away money" - that's the problem. You're not "feeling y'all", you're part of the problem. The example provides no specifics. If you think you can get the same skills for $15,000 less, you obviously have no respect for the skills that it takes to be a capable journalist.

You could find people to cover NFL beats for $25,000, but my guess is you are going to spend a lot more time editing them, that there is going to be a learning curve and if you are in a competitive situation your paper is going to get beat on a lot of stories, and that if you are lucky enough to find somebody to do the job for $25,000 and they are very good, they aren't going to be happy for very long. Using your logic, you should get rid of everybody making more than $50,000.

However, let's say it is a paper with a good size circulation. Paying the higher salary would be likely to result in less turnover. Let me put it this way - a newspaper pays somebody $20,000 to cover a city council meeting. It would mean a publisher is sending out somebody to report on an important government agency, and the agency's lowest level clerical staff member makes more than the reporter. If you don't see a problem with that, I suggest you read Foster Winans's book about how he was making $28,000 and writing the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal. Granted that was in the 1980s, but that was a ridiculous salary for somebody writing that important a column. The result was predictable - somebody paid Winans to see what was going to be in the column and it became an insider trading scandal. That's the sort of thing that happens when pay does not equal responsibility.
 
Gold said:
Look at the words you wrote "giving away money" - that's the problem. You're not "feeling y'all", you're part of the problem. The example provides no specifics. If you think you can get the same skills for $15,000 less, you obviously have no respect for the skills that it takes to be a capable journalist.

So you're telling me that if you have three finalists for a job and one demands $15,000 more than the other, that person must be a better choice? I know people that make $40,000 and don't deserve welfare. I know people who make $22,000 and should be at least doubling that, even within the context of what journalists typically make. I also know that when you get to the finalist stage of a job filling process, unless you have a breakout awesome person in the mix, you're looking at people who all can do the job well, and any differences in ability to do it are likely to be small to the point of non-noticible.

So yes, you can and usually DO have three finalists that are equally able to do a job, whatever that job is. If Option A is worth the extra $15,000, then by all means pay that person the extra $15,000. If all three can do the job equally well and two people are willing to do the job for significantly less money, then what is your reasoning for spending money that you don't HAVE to? That IS giving away money, like paying $20 for a $12 case of Yuenglings because you want to experience solidarity with the mom-and-pop convenience store from which you're purchasing it. If the more expensive option is worth the money, then yes. Otherwise, again, what business is going to pay someone $40,000 for a job they're willing to do for $25,000?

You could find people to cover NFL beats for $25,000, but my guess is you are going to spend a lot more time editing them, that there is going to be a learning curve and if you are in a competitive situation your paper is going to get beat on a lot of stories, and that if you are lucky enough to find somebody to do the job for $25,000 and they are very good, they aren't going to be happy for very long. Using your logic, you should get rid of everybody making more than $50,000.
Jeez, way to triple jump to an incorrect conclusion there. Chances are that yes, an NFL beater willing to take $25,000 isn't going to be good, but not because he's making $25,000, but because he doesn't have the experience to make more. Obviously, someone with precious little experience probably is not on even keel with the writer who won't do it for more than $50,000. Therefore, the people who warrant more money through their experience and talent are going to get it. I don't know where you got the idea that everyone who makes more than $50,000 should be fired; seriously, I have no ****ing CLUE where that comes from.

However, let's say it is a paper with a good size circulation. Paying the higher salary would be likely to result in less turnover. Let me put it this way - a newspaper pays somebody $20,000 to cover a city council meeting. It would mean a publisher is sending out somebody to report on an important government agency, and the agency's lowest level clerical staff member makes more than the reporter. If you don't see a problem with that, I suggest you read Foster Winans's book about how he was making $28,000 and writing the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal. Granted that was in the 1980s, but that was a ridiculous salary for somebody writing that important a column. The result was predictable - somebody paid Winans to see what was going to be in the column and it became an insider trading scandal. That's the sort of thing that happens when pay does not equal responsibility.
The writer in the example you provided accepted the salary. We can say "well hell, it's not right that person get paid less than a clerical employee," and you're right, but this person took the job at that money. You pay the people what the market is willing to bear. This is not a newspaper-only concept. The clerical employee didn't get whatever they're making just from the government's lagresse -- they posted a job that had a salary or wage range, and whoever got the job got it for a figure somewhere in it. They're not in the business of paying money that they don't have to, and few people or companies are. I'm still waiting for someone to give me the justification of paying someone $15,000 more than another person without proving that they're worth $15,000 more. No industry does that.

The problem is simple and cold economics: Fewer jobs + more applicants = buyer's market. If you want to solve the problem, help start more papers that compete directly against monopoly papers, which are the overwhelming majority now. Or start a series of smallpox outbreaks at every major journalism program in America's colleges, or whatever it'll take to convince the next crop of would-be wage jockeys not to enter our already-Balkanized turf.
 
and there's another thing, Mystery Meat.

If you are a sports editor who pays something which is that less than fair, your staff will see that and you might lose a couple of people - they will look at the writing on the wall. As a SE, you have to be able to defend paying $40,000 a year if that is a market salary.

When you go cheap, it would be like mixing a gallon of water with 5 gallons of gas in your car. Down the road, it will hurt you.

Paying below a market wage by a great deal is bad management. You have failed the people you supervise, and somewhere down the road, they will fail you.

If somebody is making $22,000 a year and they stick with it for more than a year, they are a lousy journalist. They aren't paid professionally, the aren't treated professionally, they aren't professional. If they can't stick up for themself, how can what they do have any integrity. In El Paso, Texas, one of the poorer areas with lower wages in the US, a starting teaching salary was $30,000 two years ago.

Mystery Meat, you don't understand the first thing about economics. You gave a foolish example. You seem perfectly OK with journalists making so much less than teachers - it's a proud newspaper tradition. And that might work for an apprenticeship year. If somebody is making half of what they should, they need to do something. Maybe it's taking the extra courses to be a teacher.

So what are you, a fool or someone who aspires to be a suck up?

You don't know the first thing about cold and simple economics. This is real life, not economics class.
 
buckweaver said:
Nice example of management-speak. But it doesn't justify paying somebody that type of salary. ::)

I have $50 in my account until Thursday afternoon, when I get a check from my part-time job. I have $50 in pending debits that will likely come off the bank account tonight. I have more than $15,000 in credit card debt due to constant moving, car problems and being ****ing stupid. Yes, I'm clearly a manager with gold in my eyes and contempt for my fellow man.
And that's exactly why, as Gold said, if you're waiting for it to come from the top ... keep waiting.
No doubt. There's few if any industries where that's not the case.

The pressure has to come from the bottom. There is no choice but for it to come from the bottom. And in case it's not clear -- we're on the bottom. Yes, even the sports editors. Don't buy into this **** that being an SE makes you part of "management." All it means is you have a title and you get no OT pay. Plus, you have to sit in on managers' meetings. But you get your name on the S1 flag. ... You're as expendable as anyone else, and you can get lowballed like anyone else.

The pressure has to come from us. It won't come from the people who *decide* the salaries or balance the books. It has to come from us. If we want it to change, it has to come from us.
Okay, Che Guevara, what do you propose? Massive walkouts? Sitdown strikes? Most people who study print journalism in college did so knowing that the pay is not great -- they had friends in the real world tell them, they had professors tell them, they saw it in freelance assignments and internships. Most people stuck with it and got jobs at less-than-living-la-vida-loca salaries and wages that they knew was coming -- maybe not as low as they were preparing themselves for, but they knew it was coming and they met it head on anyway. You (singular) has met the enemy and it is you (general). Like I said to Gold, it's a matter of cold-blooded economics wherein less jobs + larger job applicant pool = buyer's market, and that's going to be the case whether it's print journalism, teaching, accounting or any other profession or trade. There's a difference between fighting an obvious wrong like a six-year wage freeze or a mileage rate that won't even cover the cost of gas and fighting the culture of relatively low salaries for journalists, because it's not just a case of unilateral meanness by your employer that you don't make $10,000 a year more than you do, it's a product of business, and everyone has to deal with it. It's a matter of there being plenty of people who can do the job as well as someone who costs more, and a company that has to make the choice between the two. How many people are going to choose the more expensive option IF there's no difference in the way they do their job?
 
Mystery Meat said:
buckweaver said:
Nice example of management-speak. But it doesn't justify paying somebody that type of salary. ::)

I have $50 in my account until Thursday afternoon, when I get a check from my part-time job. I have $50 in pending debits that will likely come off the bank account tonight. I have more than $15,000 in credit card debt due to constant moving, car problems and being ****ing stupid. Yes, I'm clearly a manager with gold in my eyes and contempt for my fellow man.


I didn't say you're a manager. I said that's "management-speak." And it is. It doesn't seem to make much sense for you to look at things from that perspective when you yourself are not benefiting from that perspective, does it?



Mystery Meat said:
it's a product of business, and everyone has to deal with it. It's a matter of there being plenty of people who can do the job as well as someone who costs more, and a company that has to make the choice between the two. How many people are going to choose the more expensive option IF there's no difference in the way they do their job?

I disagree that there is no difference in the way they do their jobs, but that's another story for another day. ...

Yes, from the company's standpoint and from the business standpoint, sure, that's the route they're always going to take, pay as little as you can to get as much as you can. It's why many, many newspapers are making such insane profit margins as they are.

And it's also why the status quo is going to remain the status quo if "everyone has to deal with it" and doesn't do anything about it. Your attitude in these posts is the status quo. You're justifying management by explaining why they shouldn't give a writer $25K when he'll accept $21K. And yes, part of the problem lies with the supply over the demand. But as Gold said earlier, management *wants* us to believe that they can pull any Joe Schmoe off the street to do our jobs. I don't buy it. You justify management -- and you justify the status quo -- if you believe that.

No offense to you, because this isn't personal ... but the status quo sucks. Hence all the complaining, and the fact that people are willing to take jobs for **** wages, and are willing to get treated like dirt by their employers, because they think that's the way it has to be. Well, it doesn't.

I'm not advocating sit-down strikes and **** like that. I am advocating awareness, and information, and more open communication about the "culture of journalism" and what we can do to make it better. Surveys help. Discussion helps. Arguments help. Education helps -- immensely.

Hopefully, it'll help to foster discussion (more than just on here) about raising the standard wages for an average employee at an average company, about not settling for **** wages when you're going for a job, about changing the culture of journalism from within, instead of a) settling for the status quo; or b) waiting for it to happen from above; or c) just leaving the business all together when you get fed up with it. Like so many do.

I don't want to leave the business when I get fed up with it. I love what I do. But I also need to make a living. We all do.
 
Gold said:
and there's another thing, Mystery Meat.

If you are a sports editor who pays something which is that less than fair, your staff will see that and you might lose a couple of people - they will look at the writing on the wall. As a SE, you have to be able to defend paying $40,000 a year if that is a market salary.
Okay, who's defining "fair"? There's probably people who make $75,000 a year doing a ****-poor job that think they're being paid an unfairly low wage. Hell, look at the .220 utility infielders who go to arbitration hoping for an extra $400,000 over their team's offer. Obviously the large majority of sportswriters (I hope) don't line up with either example. But if I offer a job to someone who will take it for $25,000, a) obviously I still think this person is more than qualified for the job and b) I'd have a lot more to explain to people if I hired someone at $40,000 who wasn't worth the extra $15,000. You can say "pay the cheaper guy $40,000 because you think that's what he deserves," but I don't have unlimited resources and if I'm going to shell out money, I have to justify it.

When you go cheap, it would be like mixing a gallon of water with 5 gallons of gas in your car. Down the road, it will hurt you.

That assumes that talent and ability are equally proportional to salary requests. Sometimes they are, sometimes it's a case of someone with pie-in-the-sky expectations. I never said "always hire the cheapest man for the job," either. I could probably find someone in the alley of the Big City Times who'll do the national college football beat for $20 of food stamps and three boxes of wine, but I'm guessing his or her credentials won't warrant giving him the job. But if everything else is equal, you're going to go with the person that costs you the least. That's why governments and businesses farm out jobs to the lowest bidder, and that's why you (general) hold your nose and shop at Wal-Mart because their odious practices may not be enough to sway you from saving $30 on the week's groceries or a stereo system.

Paying below a market wage by a great deal is bad management. You have failed the people you supervise, and somewhere down the road, they will fail you.
I could be wrong, but I suspect I'll have a lot more problems with my writers if I hire someone that's making more money than them than I will if I bring in someone making less. And that person accepted the job. If the wage doesn't meet their standards, they'd pull out. I've turned down jobs I thought I'd like because I knew it would hurt me to take less money than I thought I was worth, both in day-to-day living expenses and in building a salary history so that my next job can pay more.

(more in next post)
 
If somebody is making $22,000 a year and they stick with it for more than a year, they are a lousy journalist. They aren't paid professionally, the aren't treated professionally, they aren't professional. If they can't stick up for themself, how can what they do have any integrity.
I'm going to guess there's a segment of SportsJournalists.com readers who make the money you described and are insulted by the idea that you find them sub-standard because of it. Or at least they SHOULD. Professionalism isn't measured by your paycheck. This isn't a defense of poor wages or the people who accept them, it's a laugh at the idea that money = righteousness.

In El Paso, Texas, one of the poorer areas with lower wages in the US, a starting teaching salary was $30,000 two years ago.
Are master's degrees a requirement for a teaching job in Texas? If so, then the comparison is apples and oranges. Plus I'd be willing to wager from the people I know that teaching is an exponentially more stressful and harrowing job than what we do. They SHOULD be making more than a lot of us.

Mystery Meat, you don't understand the first thing about economics. You gave a foolish example. You seem perfectly OK with journalists making so much less than teachers - it's a proud newspaper tradition. And that might work for an apprenticeship year. If somebody is making half of what they should, they need to do something. Maybe it's taking the extra courses to be a teacher.

So what are you, a fool or someone who aspires to be a suck up?

You don't know the first thing about cold and simple economics. This is real life, not economics class.

So do I not know economics or am I incorrectly applying the concept of economics? Also, how exactly did you try to disprove my point, other than through ad hominem? You have yet to answer the question of why you would pay Option A $15,000 a year more than Options B or C if all three are equally able to do the job. And in the middle of that, you come up with the solution -- if the money to work as a journalist is not sufficient and there's no hope for significant salary increase, you find a career that does. People leave to go to teaching, to law school (which has its own problem of supply beating demand like demand was Duke football), to sales, to whatever. People do this in all sorts of professions. I've thought about doing it myself if I think the end is nigh. But short of complaining about it on a bulletin board, leaving your job, starting a strike or waiting for Robin Hood to snag $20,000 from the publisher's money market account and depositing it in your checking account, realistic solutions aren't going to be easy, and the answer may not be as rosy and soft as you'd hope.
 
buckweaver said:
I didn't say you're a manager. I said that's "management-speak." And it is. It doesn't seem to make much sense for you to look at things from that perspective when you yourself are not benefiting from that perspective, does it?
Two things: 1. I'm looking at it from all perspectives. As a writer/editor, I think I deserve more money. But I also know that my business has X amount of money they can give someone in my position. I also know that when I leave, the person they get to replace me probably will make less money, because I'm near the top of my payscale (which isn't much, but then you're not going to make $50,000 as the SE of a weekly paper anywhere where 50 large is considered good money). I'm being a realist. 2. Isn't the whole notion of fair and impartial journalism predicated on looking at things from perspectives that we don't live or even agree with? Otherwise I'd write about nothing but fat, ugly white guys with no friends and no life.

I disagree that there is no difference in the way they do their jobs, but that's another story for another day. ...
I've only had a hand in one hiring decision in my career. It came to two writers, both of who were remarkably talented. They weren't identical; one had better experience and came from the area, the other came from Mizzou and was a very nuanced writer and reporter with tremendous upside. We ended up giving the offer to the first person, who turned it down (not enough money) and then to the second person, who took it. But what if the first person had taken it? I would have called the second person and told him he didn't get the job, but you know something? He wasn't noticibly worse than the first person at all. We would have been a much better publication regardless which one we hired. But sometimes you have to go deep down your list of tiebreakers, all the way to coin flip. And though this wasn't an issue, sometimes money required to make the move is going to be an issue. And there's no way you're going to hire the more expensive person just because he's more expensive.

(more on next post)
 
Yes, from the company's standpoint and from the business standpoint, sure, that's the route they're always going to take, pay as little as you can to get as much as you can. It's why many, many newspapers are making such insane profit margins as they are.

And it's also why the status quo is going to remain the status quo if "everyone has to deal with it" and doesn't do anything about it. Your attitude in these posts is the status quo. You're justifying management by explaining why they shouldn't give a writer $25K when he'll accept $21K. And yes, part of the problem lies with the supply over the demand. But as Gold said earlier, management *wants* us to believe that they can pull any Joe Schmoe off the street to do our jobs. I don't buy it. You justify management -- and you justify the status quo -- if you believe that.

But you're not looking at it clearly when you say you'll give someone more money than they ask for. No business, regardless its profit margin, is going to do that, unless the applicant and the interviewer are sleeping with each other (note to self: buy Trojans and Boone's Farm for upcoming interview). The problem isn't that management thinks "Joe Schmoe off the street" can do our jobs, it's that Johnny and Susie College Graduate CAN do our job, and can do it for less money. It'd be nice if salaries were handled by a meritocracy -- best people get the best money, worst people get the worst money -- but that never happens and it's not tenable to think it will happen, because there's no tangiable way to rank all reporters and editors.

No offense to you, because this isn't personal ... but the status quo sucks. Hence all the complaining, and the fact that people are willing to take jobs for **** wages, and are willing to get treated like dirt by their employers, because they think that's the way it has to be. Well, it doesn't.
None taken. And yes, getting paid less than what we think we deserve does suck. I would bet that most journalists, for what they do for their publication and the community it serves, deserve more money. I would bet that's the case with a lot of people in all walks of life. And there's deadwood all around, and there's also people who make money based on their relative worth to a business that doesn't translate at all to the betterment of the world around them (professional athletes, who draw seven and eight-figure yearly salaries because of what they mean to their organization but do nothing to make the schools better, the water cleaner and the streets safer in the neighborhoods of the people who watch him play). Problem is, as long as people are accepting, without coercion, salaries we find distasteful, then that's not going to change.

(STILL more on next post)
 
I'm not advocating sit-down strikes and **** like that. I am advocating awareness, and information, and more open communication about the "culture of journalism" and what we can do to make it better. Surveys help. Discussion helps. Arguments help. Education helps -- immensely.
Problem is, as I pointed out earlier, pretty much everyone knows what they're getting into money-wise and we still go to j-school. We had a thread where we were to dispense one nugget of solid-gold wisdom to the next generation (my vote was originally "make Counselor Troi take off her clothes"). What I wrote was "make sure the degree you're going after is worth the money you're paying for it." People know what financial cross they'll bear, but bear it they will all the same, and the only j-students who don't know it are the ones who delude themselves into thinking they'll be the exception rather than another brick in the rule wall (example: me).

Hopefully, it'll help to foster discussion (more than just on here) about raising the standard wages for an average employee at an average company, about not settling for **** wages when you're going for a job, about changing the culture of journalism from within, instead of a) settling for the status quo; or b) waiting for it to happen from above; or c) just leaving the business all together when you get fed up with it. Like so many do.

I don't want to leave the business when I get fed up with it. I love what I do. But I also need to make a living. We all do.
I hear you -- seriously. I agree with the heart behind the points, even if I don't think the points themselves are feasable or realistic. But for better or for worse, our jobs are getting dumbed down in the name of a last-gasp gambit towards reversing circulation drops. It's called hyperlocal journalism: everyone can be a reporter, every story deserves to be written, every picture should be displayed in technicolor and with effusive accolades bulging in the cutlines. I don't personally believe it, but the people that matter do, and at least for now, that's the wave of the future. The problem is, if we're going in that direction, it's hard to expect people to go to school for four years to get a degree to do it. I suspect that if we could do this coming straight out of high school, we'd be fine with the salaries because we didn't have to buy/borrow four-six years worth of tuition to get a entry ticket. That, I think, is the problem, and it makes me fearful for the future of journalism, more so than salaries we don't think are good enough. The present is bad enough, but the short-to-mid-term future is pants-pissingly scary.
 
Mystery Meat -  If you got paid by the word, your financial problems would be over. 

Read your posts and think about it and maybe evaluate what you said and evaluate your life.

You spent all this time writing this stuff.  You're telling me how much you know.  You're telling me how you had these people who had so much talent.

Reality check - you are at a weekly newspaper. You are at a disadvantage if you apply to a daily newspaper. You are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain - I don't say that to be mean but that's the way it is.

If somebody is at a daily newspaper and are making $22,000 a year after their first year, they shouldn't be offended by my comments they should be offended by their publisher. It might be one thing to start somebody low, but once they can do the job you have to show some respect.

No, you don't need a masters in El Paso, Texas. Texas is one of the lowest states for teachers salaries. The salary I quoted was for a starting teacher with a BA.

You want my answer about a hiring decision? I'd find another job where it would be important and I wouldn't be paying a professional with experience $25,000. I wouldn't spend about six long posts defending a system which takes pride in underpaying journalists.

You have a loser's mentality. You make ridiculous arguments abut ridiculous examples. Like I say, change starts from within. If anybody can do the job, then it isn't worth much money. I tell people when I go to cover a football game on Friday night, anybody can write what I write. What they can't do is do it as quickly as I can do it. That's the difference - we can turn a story in 20 or 25 minutes. It doesn't matter if a person is "remarkably talented" or has a "nuanced style of writing and reporting".

You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.
 
Gold said:
Mystery Meat - If you got paid by the word, your financial problems would be over.

Read your posts and think about it and maybe evaluate what you said and evaluate your life.

You spent all this time writing this stuff. You're telling me how much you know.

Um ... okay?
 
I'm surprised I haven't heard the dreaded 'u' word yet (that's 'union', in case you were wondering) because that seems like it's what a lot of people want, but you just aren't willing to say it. There are already papers out there with guilds, and if you feel so strongly, work your way to one of them. There are also some papers that are owned by quality companies (i.e. Cox and NYTRNG) that pay very fair salaries and provide great benefits. This is more of a company to company thing than a total blanket condemnation of the entire newspaper industry. I like the idea of making salary information readily available and speaking up about what you think you deserve, but that's something that should be done at an individual or sports section level. We don't need some kind of 'movement' to right all the wrongs we are enduring in a profession we freely chose to join and freely can choose to leave.
 
it took me 20 years unti i finally make $10 over my age, and then i finally got there.

and yet i'm still getting screwed by fair market value for what i do...........not living large, but doing ok.

so i would say this: tell your boss you know you're not getting fair market value, and you heard it from an industry analyst that's very prominent on this subject.

wait for him/her to ask the name of that analyst.

then lean back and say: Heywood Jablome.

hell, it can't hurt. tell 'em you read it right here.

i got your back on this one..........
 
Gold said:
You're telling me how you had these people who had so much talent.

Reality check - you are at a weekly newspaper. You are at a disadvantage if you apply to a daily newspaper. You are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain - I don't say that to be mean but that's the way it is.

I see you weren't quite done up there. Fair enough. When I made that hiring decision, I was the sports editor at a small daily, and yes, the two people for the position I had a hand in hiring would have been spectacular additions, both of them. Y'know, just because I'm at a weekly paper NOW doesn't mean I couldn't have been at bigger papers before this (by the by, thanks for reminding me that it's not the New York Times; I was wondering why people in the office were looking at me funny when I asked why our presence in the Middle East was so lacking). And I've gotten an interview with a daily newspaper in the last week with one for a second paper likely on the way, so I guess I overcame the disadvantage somehow. But please, feel free to look down your nose at me because I don't snap-to to your worldview.

If somebody is at a daily newspaper and are making $22,000 a year after their first year, they shouldn't be offended by my comments they should be offended by their publisher. It might be one thing to start somebody low, but once they can do the job you have to show some respect.
So when you say they're bad journalists with no self-respect, they should take their angst out elsewhere? The raise a first-year reporter gets is the one that comes with a job at a bigger paper. Rarely do people want to stay at their first paper unless it's a perfect fit.

No, you don't need a masters in El Paso, Texas. Texas is one of the lowest states for teachers salaries. The salary I quoted was for a starting teacher with a BA.
Again, their job is intense and stressful and sometimes dangerous, and whether we like it or not, they have more of an impact on our future than we do. So it makes sense they get paid more than we do as a whole.

You want my answer about a hiring decision? I'd find another job where it would be important and I wouldn't be paying a professional with experience $25,000. I wouldn't spend about six long posts defending a system which takes pride in underpaying journalists.

God above, you CANNOT be this dense in real life. You're going to quit your job instead of making the hiring decision, in the process delivering a self-righetous and pious lecture to anyone who doesn't agree with you. Yeah, that'll solve EVERYTHING. Why didn't I think of that?

How about this: I wish there was this button, and when you hit it, everyone gets paid what they deserve. You seem to think the answer is that easy and obvious, and of course it's not, but you're only going to listen to what you want to listen to, namely that writers don't get paid due to a conspiracy of newspaper management twirling their evil mustaches and rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of keeping you dressed in barrels and sleeping under newspapers. There's plenty to ***** about when it comes to management, but if we agree to a salary, then we don't really have a lot of leverage to affect change when we realize that hey, our salary isn't that good!

You have a loser's mentality. You make ridiculous arguments abut ridiculous examples. Like I say, change starts from within. If anybody can do the job, then it isn't worth much money. I tell people when I go to cover a football game on Friday night, anybody can write what I write. What they can't do is do it as quickly as I can do it. That's the difference - we can turn a story in 20 or 25 minutes. It doesn't matter if a person is "remarkably talented" or has a "nuanced style of writing and reporting".
Tell you what. I have a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee in front of my apartment. 100,000 miles, just hit that mark on the way to the aformentioned job interview. Blue book is probably like 8 or 9,000 bucks, I haven't looked. Got a new battery installed by the fine folks at Advance Auto Parts. I'll sell it to you for $20,000, because if you get a better deal, clearly that means you're getting a lesser car.

At what point did I say ANYONE could do the job? Oh right, I didn't, but again, you're listening to what you want to hear, even if that means you have to dub over the other voices. I said that if you have three people who can do the job equally well, and one demands $40,000 while the other two will do it for $25,000, you'd be a ****ing fool to hire the $40,000 person. And in the real world, anyone who makes a hiring decision is likely going to agree.

You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.
Or I can be a dispassionate observer who tries to get both sides of the story instead of whining about how it's unfair that I don't get the money I think I deserve and that we need to force people to pay us better. I guess that's what passes for a "winner's mentality".
 
If you think a fresh college grad can do your job as well as you ... then you need to do better.
(I know there are many outstanding grads with talent oozing out of their ears, but experience sure means a lot).

Let me give some more advice: the supply and demand thing is true. And there are jobs in the newsroom where supply does NOT equal demand. You might want to think about those.
 
SportsDesigner: Depends on the job. A college grad, with extremely rare exceptions like Jeff Darlington or Chris Snow, cannot be competitive in a big-boy job search. But they can be right there in an entry-level job against someone with enough experience to warrant thousands of dollars more.
 

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